Bits and pieces of my life. I am a lifelong Christian. I have been married for over 39 years to Stan. No children. We have 3 Italian Greyhounds: Persephone, Dresden & Capodimonte and a calico cat named Binky. We have 9 nieces/nephews and 9 grandnieces/nephews whom we love. My hobbies are genealogy, reading, digital scrapbooking, history, dogs, homemaking. This is a personal blog and not a business. I share what interests me and I am not selling anything or making a profit.

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..........Contact me at Mom25dogs@gmail.com.........

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Worry and Anxiety

Mat 6:25-30 Therefore I say to you, Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Behold the birds of the air; for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they are? Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin, but I say to you that even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Therefore if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much rather clothe you, little-faiths?

We can give thought to our worldly things but NOT anxious, worrying thought. It is prudent commonsense to give thought to our situation. We are called to be good stewards. But we are not to worry, fret, be unsettled, agitated, be of a doubtful mind. This would indicate our lack of faith in God's provision. Jesus is not commanding us to cease working for our living. He did not tell us to quit preparing for and maintaining our support. But there is a balance. If we begin to stray into anxiety, worrying, distressing, perplexing, obsessive thoughts then we are out of balance.

Phi 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

We are dearer to God than all His other creation. He commanded the formation of the Earth and it's flora and fauna and animals with a Word from His mouth. But He formed Adam and Eve with His own Hands and breathed His breath into them. He was very personally and intimately involved in their creation. And He is very personally and intimately involved in our creation.

Psa 139:13-17 For You have possessed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well. My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret and skillfully formed in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my embryo; and in Your book all my members were written, the days they were formed, and not one was among them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

"Gorgeous as is the array of the flowers that deck the fields, surpassing all artificial human grandeur, it is for but a brief moment; you are ravished with it to-day, and to-morrow it is gone..." Jamieson, Fawcett and Brown commentary.

And yet, we, who are more valuable to Him than flowers, worry about what we shall wear? We would think that He would provide for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, and NOT provide for us, His Children? It is sin to suppose that God is not able to provide for His Children. It is a lack of faith and trust in God and this is sin.

If you look at the animals do you see them with workshops, offices, assembly lines, tools, selling merchandise? They are fed and provided for without anxiety. Man also would have been supported without labor and anxiety, had he not corrupted his ways with sin. Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience caused mankind to have to work hard.

Gen 3:17-19 And to Adam He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it! The ground is cursed for your sake. In pain shall you eat of it all the days of your life. It shall also bring forth thorns and thistles to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

And, yet, we are created by our God, our salvation has been provided for by His Son, Jesus Christ, and we were created to serve God. Will He not provide for us? We, who are his born-again children, are under His special care. We must not neglect to work hard and to be careful with our provisions but we must not stray into worry and anxiety nor into depending on our resources rather than depending on God. There is a balance and God is in the balance.

Really, what else can we do? We work and are careful but it is all in God's Hands. What can our uneasiness do but render us still more unworthy (because of our sinful lack of trust) of the Divine care? Can we make the money appear by worrying over it? Can we make the expense go away because of our night of anxiety? Will wringing our hands put food on the table? NO!

"Your being, its excellence and usefulness, do not depend on your anxious concern: they spring as truly from the beneficence and continual superintendence of God, as the flowers of the field do; and were you brought into such a situation, as to be as utterly incapable of contributing to your own preservation and support as the lilies of the field are to theirs, your heavenly Father could augment your substance, and preserve your being, when for his glory and your own advantage." Clarke commentary

When you begin to be anxious, go to God. Pray and praise and reading of His Word and meditating on His greatness in the past, present and future will help get your mind off the problem and on to God. God should be our focus. He deserves more of our energy, time, and thought than our problem. Once He is first in our life, all other things are taken care of the way they should be.

Matthew 6:33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.